


rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark

by bucketofrice



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 1970s, AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Journalism AU, should feature plenty of cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice
Summary: She's a copy editor; he's a rookie metro reporter.She gets the tip during a routine fact-checking call: something's afoot. He wants her to write the story; they're both put on the assignment.They're guaranteed a co-byline ... and maybe a little bit more.orTessa and Scott both work for The Globe and Mail, in 1970s Toronto.





	1. the lede

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! *waves* This is my first-ever foray into AU, and I'm still quite new to coming up with substantial plot, but alas, here we are. 
> 
> A few notes before we begin: this is set in the 1970s, at _The Globe and Mail_ , in Toronto. It's one of the biggest papers in Canada, think _New York Times_ , etc. for comparison. Any and all journalism knowledge comes from classes and experience (please feel free to call me out if I've mucked things up) and 1970s Toronto knowledge is from our favourite, Google. Again, please let me know if things are inaccurate. Many thanks to [fairwinds09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairwinds09/pseuds/fairwinds09) and [bumblebee_rose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebee_rose/pseuds/bumblebee_rose) for letting me bounce ideas off you.
> 
> I hope you like this, and please let me know what you think! :')
> 
> Title is from "Writer In The Dark" by Lorde. Chapter titles are the basic parts of an article.

**_the lede_ **

_(n.) the introductory sentence of an article, intended to entice the reader to read the full story_  

“Could you verify the spelling of your last name for me?” Tessa asks, trapping the phone’s receiver to her ear with her shoulder as she dictates the surname she’s currently tracing with her pencil. “A-N-D-E-R-S-E-N, with an ‘e’? Great, thank you so much.”

She makes a mark next to the name and moves on to her next question, silently counting down the minutes until her lunch break. She hasn’t had anything but a cup of coffee all day and she can practically _feel_ her stomach complaining. Around her, the rhythmic sound of typewriter keys clacking has faded into a familiar hum, the hustle and bustle of the newsroom becoming a bizarre sort of background music to her conversation.

“Thank you Mr. Andersen,” she says five minutes later, setting her pencil down. “Have a nice day.” 

She sighs as she deposits the receiver in its cradle and rubs at her temple. Some people just don’t get the memo that a fact-checking interview is supposed to be quick and simple, and really enjoy rehashing their entire life story to her. Most days, it’s sweet, and makes her smile. 

But today, she’s running on too little sleep and not enough caffeine to fully appreciate the story of Mr. Andersen’s dog escaping the garden and running down the street for five blocks before the neighbour found him. She really needs more coffee. And some food.

By the time noon finally rolls around, Tessa’s already making a beeline for the break room, wanting nothing more than her sandwich and a cup of office coffee with that oddly stale creamer that Marina, the head copy chief, has her sister send from Russia twice a year. 

It’s got some kind of vanilla flavouring, she thinks, but she’s not quite sure and frankly a bit too scared to ask. Some things, like practically all of Marina’s past and her various _connections_ , are better left unknown.

She’s made it down the hall and around the corner, not bothering to look left or right, when she quite ungracefully collides with a solid form, sending papers flying everywhere.

“Sorry, I—”

“Oh, I didn’t see—”

She bends down to help pick up the papers, not even pausing to register who she bumped into in her haste and embarrassment. It’s only as she’s crouching on the ground, arranging the papers in a neat stack that she hazards a glance upwards, her gaze locking on a pair of hazel eyes. They’re wide and expressive, framed by a pair of truly impressive eyebrows.

Upon further inspection, his whole face looks kind, even with his quite spectacularly angled jawline. His hair is dark brown, and just the right length to run through with your fingers. _Get a grip, Tessa, she chides herself, and give him back his things._

She blushes and hands over the papers, unable to tear her eyes away from his. “Here,” she says lamely, unsure of the next step. She sees his eyes crinkle and his mouth turn up in a smile as he accepts the stack.

“Thank you,” he says, holding out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Scott. Scott Moir.”

“Tessa Virtue, nice to meet you.” She can’t help but smile back, despite the palpable awkwardness in the air. “Are you new at the paper?” She’s never seen his face before, and she wonders what desk he works for. Sports, maybe? It would fit the build.

He nods and grins sheepishly. “Yeah, first day. Really started off well, running into staffers and all. I’m assigned to the metro desk, covering city politics for the start. You?”

“Well, headed to the break room for lunch as of a minute ago.” He flushes red at that, but she just smiles and winks. He deserved that one, just a little bit. “I work in copy, line edits and fact-checking mainly. I’ve been here going on two years, so I know practically all the secrets.”

Somehow, his presence makes her bold, because she leans in conspiratorially and whispers the next thing in his ear. “Like which coffee maker is the best one, and what days Suzanne from the archives bakes her famous lemon bars.”

He lets out a laugh, his eyebrows doing a funny thing she’s never seen on another person before and soon she’s giggling despite herself. “While I’m on my way, let me show you the break room. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the food and properly fulfil the starving writer trope.”

“Never.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Tessa sees Scott around the newsroom more often than not. They strike up conversation in the break room, over the news desk before the daily budget meeting that she sometimes attends as Marina’s proxy, or when he walks over to her desk to pick up a story she or her colleagues have gone through, line by line.

She learns a bit about him, over those few weeks. He’s from Ilderton, a small-town boy, has two brothers and parents he loves deeply. He started out working for the local paper, first as a copy boy, then, after finishing his degree, as a real reporter, general assignment. After a brief stint at the London Free Press, he got the job at the Globe, leaving his home for the big city.

“Sounds like a proper coming-of-age novel,” she jokes when he tells her. His inflection had been purposefully dramatic, eyebrows waggling, arms spread wide. He laughs, deep and throaty, and she grins. Making him laugh is quickly becoming one of her favourite pastimes, she realizes, but she doesn’t dare question why.

They’re work colleagues, and besides, she’s got bigger fish to fry.

He tells her he’s known Patch, one of the arts reporters, and his wife Marie-France, a fellow journalist, for years now. Marie does freelance work, sometimes for the Globe, and Tessa can’t help but be in awe of her skill. 

It’s what she wants to be doing, if she really thinks about it. Tessa wants to be a reporter, to chase leads and stories and write about things she cares about. Instead, she’s stuck at the copy desk under Marina’s watchful eye (sometimes too watchful, if she’s being honest), diligently working through reams of paper that will make it into the paper the next day, under bylines that aren’t hers. 

There’s no recognition for copy editors like her, no demarcation below the newsprint that shows the toil that she puts in to every line, every comma, every fact and proper noun. It’s not like she minds; her work is important, after all. The paper wouldn’t run without her desk (despite some of the cleverer opinions held by certain members of the board who have no idea what the editorial process actually looks like) and she knows it.

Some days though, Tessa picks up the paper in the morning and flips through the pages, her fingers smudging the still-inky newsprint, and wonders. Wonders what it would be like to see _Tessa Virtue, The Globe and Mail_ , in black ink, right there on the page. But then she scans the actual headlines, skimming articles she didn’t edit the day before and seeing byline after byline,mostly men, none her own.

She doesn’t realize how long she’s been standing in the corner of the bullpen, paper in hand, until Kaitlyn taps her shoulder and gives her a good-natured once over and a _tsk_. “Come on, shift started five minutes ago! I grabbed you a cup of coffee.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tessa mumbles, following Kaitlyn back to their neighbouring desks. She’s been at the Globe for as long as Tessa has, but she’s from Houston, and sometimes Tessa honestly questions why Kaitlyn left the dry heat to subject herself to the frigid Toronto winter.

They sit down and Tessa gratefully picks up the coffee Kaitlyn brought her, taking a long sip before tackling the first article draft that’s in her bin. She scans the headline and lede, her red pencil moving deftly from word to word. Over the past two years, she’s found a rhythm that works for her, a system of marking and attacking each line that makes sense.

She finds satisfaction in marked-up copy, in the red lines and squiggles and tick marks that litter the page after she’s done with them. Copyediting has rules, it’s a system, and the end result is clean copy. Neat and precise. Tidy.

Tessa works through a few articles before she has to get on the phone to call a source to fact-check. The conversation is by-the-book for the first few minutes, and she thinks nothing of it, rattling off spellings and addresses and double-checking timelines. She’s about to end the call when the voice on the other end speaks up again.

“Miss, there’s something else. I’ve got it on good authority that there’s something fishy happening in city council.” Immediately, Tessa perks up and grabs the closest memo pad, sandwiching the receiver between her shoulder and cheek. “There’s a councillor, and I’ve heard he’s up to no good…”

Tessa’s furiously taking notes, trying to retain every bit of information her source ( _Her_ source. She has a real, honest-to-god source!) is giving her, though there isn’t much at all. Just some vague inklings, whispers about money changing hands where it shouldn’t have, and one name.

_Didier Gailhaguet._

She dutifully copies it down, underlines it twice, and circles it for emphasis.

Just as she’s about to ask another question, she’s interrupted by the source. “This is all off the record.” Then the line clicks, and all she hears is static.

Momentarily stunned, Tessa looks down at her notes and tries to make sense of what just happened. Does she show this to someone? Who? Would anyone actually believe her? They’d ask for her source. But can she give that up? _No, that’s journalistic ethics 101._ Her thoughts are spiralling and she’s getting more stressed by the second until she hears a loud _thunk_ and another ream of paper lands on her desk.

“From Russia with love,” Kaitlyn quips. “Marina’s taking a break to meet Johnny for coffee and we’re supposed to pick up the slack.” She drawls out the name, like it’s as sticky as molasses and as bitter as cough syrup. Johnny is a delivery truck driver, and Marina meets him for ‘coffee’ at least once a week.

Tessa just groans and sifts through the papers. Typical. Her mysterious caller will have to wait.

She makes it to her lunch break without incident, and when the clock strikes noon, she pulls Kaitlyn down the hallway into a corner so quickly that her friend doesn’t have any time to process. 

“Tess, what the hell?” Kaitlyn hisses. “What’s going on?”

“I got a scoop, Kaitlyn. Like, a real one.”

She proceeds to lay out the entire situation, right down to the ominous declaration that the source was going off the record. And that, no, she absolutely cannot tell Kaitlyn who it is, because that’s the whole _point_ of keeping things off the record, now isn’t it?

By the time she’s done, Kaitlyn’s eyes are as wide as saucers and neither of them have a clue of what to do. It’s right in that moment that Scott walks down the hall, holding a cup of coffee. Kaitlyn lunges out and grabs his arm, pulling him in.

“What the hell—” Tessa shoots her friend a death glare as Scott tries not to loose his footing and spill his coffee everywhere. He looks about as confused as she is, his eyes flitting from her to Kaitlyn and back again.

“Scott’s a reporter,” Kaitlyn says, which might be the most obvious and unnecessary statement of fact Tessa’s heard all day.

“Yes..?” Scott and Tessa both reply, in unison, and Kaitlyn just shakes her head, clearly exasperated.

“Tessa, tell him what you just told me. He’ll know what to do.”

She explains the situation for the second time that day, and watches in faint amusement as Scott’s eyebrows creep higher and higher, angling together in the most particular way. When she finishes her little speech, she shrugs her shoulders and smiles lamely.

“I don’t know where to go from here.”

Secretly, she knows exactly how she wants this to play out. She wants to finally have a scoop of her own, an editor who will encourage her to chase the story, and eventually, that goddamn byline she’s been dreaming of ever since she drew her parents and brothers a handwritten newspaper when she was in elementary school. _The Virtue Gazette, print editions every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Asking price: five cents or a kiss to the cheek and a scoop of chocolate ice cream._

But that’s unlikely to happen. Because she’s a lowly copy editor and they’re not likely to waste a scoop like that on her. And besides, she’s a woman. They’re most likely going to get her to give all her information to some seasoned reporter so he can sort it out.

So there’s no way she anticipates what Scott says next.

“Come on, we’re taking this to Igor. You’ve got to get on this as quickly as possible, if you want to get this written before someone else breaks it first."

Before she know’s what’s happening, or has the ability to protest, she’s following him down the hallway to Igor’s office. He’s the metro editor, and he has a reputation for being an absolute stickler for conciseness and style. And death glares. Those are infamous.

Scott knocks on Igor’s door three times in rapid succession, a rhythmic _tap tap tap_ that reminds her of typewriter keys. Igor bellows for them to come in, and they find him at his desk, his feet propped up and a cloud of smoke surrounding his head.

His gaze moves from Tessa to Scott and back again. “What do you want?”

“Tessa has a source, sir,” Scott says, turning slightly to her. “Tell him what you just told me.”

So she does, rehashes the whole thing for a third time, and watches Igor’s brow furrow. She’s never been sure what to make of the man, but Scott’s there, encouraging her, and somehow his presence is calming enough. When she gets to the end, Igor leans back and takes a drag from his cigarette.

“So you won’t tell me your source?”

“Off the record, sir,” she replies. Her voice wavers, but she’s determined to stand her ground.

Igor grunts and lets out a puff of smoke. “Very well. You must tell Scott, he will take the story.”

“I—” she starts, but Scott cuts her off.

“It’s Tessa’s scoop, she should write it.”

Igor looks between them both with faint amusement. “Well, well, it’s nice to see you standing up for our pretty copy editor over here.” Tessa blushes, the embarrassment palpable, and wishes sincerely that she could sink into the ground and disappear, right there.

“I’m just saying, it’s her source, she has the best chance of getting anywhere with the information.”

Igor pauses to consider his statement, and lets out a noncommittal huff. “Fine. Work together. But keep an eye on her, Moir.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Now get out.”

When they leave the office, Tessa is the one to drag Scott down a hallway, by the fabric of his shirtsleeve, no less. When they’re sufficiently far from Igor, she stands squarely in front of him, her eyes narrowed. _How dare he try to baby her._

“What the hell was that?” she spits out, clenching her hands into fists.

“What the hell was what?”

“Your and Igor’s apparent plan to babysit me! I do not need to be supervised. I have a job, and I’m perfectly happy to give the story to a reporter.” They both know that she’s lying, but Tessa is too enraged to care.

“Wait, hold on. I _want_ you to write it! It’s your scoop, you deserve it.”

“And your way of making that happen was to effectively hold my hand every step of the way to make sure I don’t, what? Make the paper look bad?” 

She realizes she’s blowing this out of proportion, but she can’t help herself. Scott raises his hands, as if to placate her.

“No, no. I wanted you to get to write this alone. That was all Igor, believe me. You’re fully capable of this, T. If you want, I’ll walk right back into that office and tell him to take me off the story.”

Her face softens at his words, and at his apparent nickname for her. _That one’s new, she thinks_. He looks so sincere and apologetic that she instantly feels bad for lashing out at him.

“No, it’s okay. I’m sorry I yelled. God knows I’m going to need help with this. What do you say, double byline? Moir and Virtue?”

“No,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Virtue and Moir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments make my day. Feel free to yell at me there, or on Tumblr, @good-things-come-in-threes, or Twitter, @_bucketofrice.


	2. the nut graf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! *waves* Thank you so much for the incredibly sweet comments and reactions to the last chapter, you have no idea how happy they make me. And sorry about the delay for this chapter, real life got in the way a bit.
> 
> Some notes: Google Maps searches of old newsrooms are surprisingly fun, I think I might be writing one of the few stories where Tessa's love for Hall & Oates is actually relevant, because we're in the right decade, and I'm still looking loads of stuff up on the internet, so please feel free to call me out on any inaccuracies.
> 
> Also, thanks to fairwinds09 for her invaluable help in times of great plot-related distress.
> 
> I hope you like this, comments make my heart happy :')

**_the nut graf_ **

_(n.) the paragraph that expresses the main idea and most important information of the article, usually found directly below the lede_

Tessa swears she’s trying really hard not to laugh.

It’s just that the combination of Marina’s death glare and the current rant she’s on (which keeps switching into Russian every few sentences, leaving everyone around her even more confused than they already are by her spoken English) and Scott’s increasingly panicked facial expressions is just priceless. Especially because this particular rant is directed at him.

“You take her away from me, to dark side of job—” she seethes, pointing a very menacing finger at Scott who visibly flinches and puts his hands up in the air, as if in surrender. “You make her talk to strange people…”

“I—” he starts, and looks over at Tessa, clearly at a loss.

She shakes her head and bites back a laugh. This is _so_ Marina, and she’d be equally intimidated if she didn’t know her boss better. This time around, she finds it absolutely hilarious. But Scott’s suffered enough for one morning, so she takes pity on him.

“This was my decision,” she chimes in, placing a reassuring hand on Marina’s arm. “I want to write this. I promise my work won’t suffer, and I’ve talked to Kaitlyn. She says she can take a bit off my plate.”

Marina looks at her and turns her head to Scott, shooting him a sceptical gaze. “And boy?”

“He’s helping me.”

“Aha.” She gives Scott one more once-over, before addressing Tessa. “Do not let him get you in trouble. Good.” She nods, huffs, turns around on her heel and walks down the hall.

As soon as Marina’s out of earshot, Scott whips around to face her, his confusion evident. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh she’s always like that. She’s on board though, which is good.”

“That’s ‘on board’?” He looks mildly stunned. “Jeez, T, what does she look like when she’s _not_ thrilled?”

Tessa has to laugh at that, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she thinks back to some Marina’s more colourful outbursts. God knows she’s witnessed many over the past two years. “Oh, you really don’t want to know. She has so many stories about the motherland; she could wax poetic about Moscow for days. If she’s being nostalgic, run for the hills, because she’s most likely livid.”

“Good to know.” He doesn’t look too convinced, and Tessa thinks of the days when she started at the Globe with a strange sense of fondness, back when Marina had still scared the living daylights out of her. Now, she can appreciate her boss’s quirks and know she’s caring under her tough exterior. Even though she often has a terrible way of showing it.

Now that they’ve gotten the green-light from Marina, Tessa and Scott can officially set out to work on figuring out what her mysterious caller is alleging. They settle down at his desk and carefully rehash what they know so far, which, once it’s all laid out, is not really that much. 

The next logical step is to call her original source again. Tessa punches in the number on Scott’s phone and she can practically feel his breath on her neck as he leans in closer so he can listen in on the call. She shudders involuntarily, doing her best to push all the thoughts about _why else_ Scott could be leaning that close to the back of her mind. 

_Focus Tessa. You want to be a reporter, now you finally have the chance. Get it together, ignore the boy._

The line rings, and miraculously, someone picks up.

“Tessa Virtue, the Globe and Mail,” she says, and holds her breath after the introduction. She’s not quite sure of her next move. Does she say the source’s name? Does she ask who’s on the line? What’s the protocol in this kind of situation?

Luckily, the voice on the other end is one step ahead of her.

“You’re calling about the councillors again.”

“Yes.”

“Listen, I don’t have any more information. What I said the other day is all I’ve got.” The line clicks and Tessa lets out a groan as she lays her head down on her desk with a thunk.

“Dead end.”

“Damn,” Scott says, scrubbing a hand over his face. She can’t believe they’ve hit a wall this early, though rationally, she should have expected it. Her initial source giving her a tip out of nowhere was crazy enough, and expecting him to have more information was foolish. She’s so caught up in her own train of thoughts that she doesn’t notice Scott straightening up beside her.

When he pulls his hand back, his whole face lights up, and Tessa’s confused by his sudden change in demeanour. He grins like a kid on Christmas and his eyebrows shoot up to the sky as he exclaims: “You’ve got your very own Deep Throat, Tess!”

She’s got a, _what now_?

He must pick up on her absolutely horrified expression — because to her it very much sounds like Scott just brought up what she understands to be a sex act, in the middle of the newsroom — and his entire face goes ashen before he turns deep crimson, the flush rising from his neck to his ears.

He’s scrambling, frantic, hands waving all over the place. “No, no, god no! I mean, you know Watergate … and like Woodward and Bernstein’s main source … the guy in the garage! They called him Deep Throat, and he was totally off the record, like your guy. So he’s like, I don’t know, the Canadian Deep Throat.”

He buries his face in his hands and shakes his head. “God, that all came out wrong.”

Understanding starts to dawn on Tessa over the course of his little speech and by the end, she’s laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes. He looks mortified, but at the sound of her giggles he slowly lifts his hands from his eyes and dares to glance at her.

When she’s composed herself enough, she decides he deserves a little good-natured teasing. 

“See I didn’t think we knew each other _that well_ , Scott, to have shared those kinds of details with one another.” He’s headed straight back to mortified after that one, and she relents and takes pity on him, placing a hand on his arm and almost bursting out into laughter again.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” she says, looking up at him with a grin. “But sadly, Canada’s Deep Throat is much less informative than his neighbour to the south.”

Scott can’t help but laugh now too, and the tension diffuses, both of them left in a fit of giggles. When they’ve calmed down some, Tessa gets serious again. With their one lead now effectively a dead end, they have little to go off of, except for that one name.

_Didier Gailhaguet._

Tessa grabs a stack of reference materials and phonebooks from the shelf by Scott’s desk and they start poring though them, quickly developing a system to divide and conquer. About an hour and three massive phonebooks later, they can add a company name to their running list of information: _ISU Holdings, Inc._ But the phone number listed by the entry is disconnected, and there’s no address. 

Tessa can’t help but feel like they’ve stumbled from one dead end right into the next one. She groans, rubbing her temples. She shuts her eyes just for a second, and she swears she _feels_ Scott perk up next to her.

“Chiddy!”

Her eyes fly open. “What?”

“Chiddy can help, come on!” He’s already halfway across the bullpen when she starts running after him, having somehow managed to snag a notepad and a pen on her way. _You never know when a scoop might come._

Their destination turns out to be a desk in another part of the newsroom, its occupant furiously typing away and seemingly oblivious to the outside world. It’s only when Scott taps him on the shoulder that he looks up, a little more than slightly annoyed at being interrupted.

“Yes?” 

Chiddy turns out to actually be named Patrick, and he’s a finance reporter. He and Scott have bonded over a mutual love of the Leafs, Tessa learns, and they sometimes go to a local rink on weekends to play pick-up hockey. But most importantly, Chiddy may be able to tell them more about Didier and the ISU.

Didier, from what Chiddy knows, is a French businessman who’s recently been popping up at events in Toronto with increasing frequency. Nobody knows quite why he’s here, though, but he’s sure as hell got everyone talking. He used to be big in real estate, Chiddy says, but now, there are rumours that he wants in on manufacturing.

“But making _what_?” Tessa asks.

“No idea. You’ll be the first to know if I find out though.”

Having exhausted all of Chiddy’s knowledge concerning Didier, Tessa and Scott make the trek down to the Globe’s archives to see if there’s anything else to be found. 

The archives are in the back corner of the basement, hidden at the end of what seems like kilometres of corridors, all lit with too-bright overhead lighting, their linoleum floor squeaking under Tessa’s shoes. She comes down here quite regularly, to fact-check or catch up with Suzanne, and she appreciates the quiet of the basement. (And the baked goods. Those too.)

The newsroom is always a flurry of activity: typewriter keys clacking, phones ringing, people yelling about sources and deadlines and _who has the damn direct line to the wire service, Dan?_ It’s fast-paced, everyone moving at breakneck speed because the news doesn’t stop for anyone and their job is to fill a paper every night.

Normally, Tessa loves being in the fray of it all, watching with rapt attention as news breaks and everyone assumes his or her position in the process. They slot in, like those little plastic discs in Connect Four, but ten times larger and three-dimensional.

It all starts with one phone call. 

The tip comes through, someone rushes to grab a notebook and a tape recorder, and out the door they run. Sometimes, when it’s summer and the windows are open, she swears she can hear the poor chap yelling for a taxi on Front Street, before driving off to wherever he’s needed.

As soon as he’s out the door, preparations are put in place to make the writing and editing as efficient as possible. 

Her favourite thing to watch is when a story gets called in from the scene. Editors and reporters all gather around the main news desk, and one poor soul is assigned to the typewriter at the epicentre of the action. 

The phone rings again.

As the reporter dictates the copy, the newsroom falls dead-silent. Aside from heavy breathing and one set of typewriter keys, you could hear a pin drop. Tessa once made the fatal mistake of pushing back her desk chair when someone was dictating a story. The wheel of her chair let out a squeak, high-pitched and grating, and she immediately felt ten pairs of eyes trained on her, laser-focused and most definitely not amused. She’d felt like she committed a capital offence, and now makes sure not to move her chair a millimetre when copy’s being called in.

As soon as the phone returns to its cradle, it’s like someone put the needle back on the gramophone. The noise returns, incessant, but she’s learned to drown it out and focus on her own work.

Still, the buzz of the newsroom can be draining at the best of times, and Tessa finds the archives provide a welcome escape. 

When she and Scott make it to the end of the hall, she immediately spots Suzanne, who pulls her into a tight hug. They catch up on the latest news, and Suzanne promises to make lemon bars for the next time Tessa pays a visit.

She almost forgets why she’s down here — or that Scott is standing awkwardly in the doorway — until Suzanne looks over her shoulder and pulls back to motion for him to come in. 

“Who’s this?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye that Tessa is trying resolutely to ignore. _Scott is her_ colleague _. They’re working on a story together, for god’s sake!_

“Scott Moir, metro desk,” he says with a smile, reaching out to shake her hand. “Tessa’s told me so much about you.”

“Has she now?” Suzanne looks between both of them and smiles, and Tessa would very much not be opposed to disappearing into thin air, right there in the entranceway of the archives. “Only good things, I hope.”

“Of course.” 

Scott has an easy charm about him that Tessa can’t help but admire (and find attractive, her brain easily supplies, much to her chagrin — because they’re _colleagues_ and he’s off-limits) as she watches him make small-talk with Suzanne. She wishes she had his natural extroversion, and sometimes wonders if her introverted nature means she’d be a bad reporter, and if it’d be better for her to stay at the copy desk, where commas and facts are more important than face-to-face interactions with people she’s never met before. 

She gets lost in her own thoughts until she notices the conversation beside her come to an end.

“So, what brings you two down here today?” Suzanne asks, breaking the spell.

Tessa and Scott fill her in on Didier, and Suzanne promises to get someone to pull all the clips the Globe has of him. She sends them back upstairs with the assurance that she’ll make an extra-large batch of lemon bars next week, and wishes them good luck on their story.

As they’re saying goodbye, she pulls Tessa into another hug. “Take care of yourself, hon. And keep me updated on Scott,” she adds, a knowing look on her face.

Tessa just laughs and shakes her head. It’s no use arguing with Suzanne, and she knows it. “I’ll see you next week.” 

Their walk through the endless corridors is quiet, save for their squeaking shoes, and pretty soon they’re back in the newsroom, going their separate ways as the sound of typewriters and telephones fills the air again.

Tessa and Scott don’t meet up again until later that evening, when she walks over to his desk with the box of clips little Kaetlyn, one of Suzanne’s archive workers, brought her from downstairs. She drops it on his desk unceremoniously, biting back a laugh at his startled expression when it lands with a thud.

“Brought you a present,” she quips. “Suzanne sends her best wishes.”

“Why thank you,” he plays along, eyebrows arching upwards as his mouth quirks into a smile. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, just ‘cause. Can’t a girl give a guy a box full of newspaper clippings about a potentially-corrupt French real estate mogul for no reason?”

She keeps her face as serious as possible, and it does the trick, because pretty soon, Scott is cracking up next to her. She has to laugh along with him, and she marvels at the fact that he’s so easy to be around — in the short time she’s known him, he’s made her more comfortable than people she’s known for years.

They decide to split up the clips into two piles, and Tessa settles into the chair at the neighbouring desk, pen and notebook in hand. She pulls her legs up and curls them under herself, determined to make this as comfortable as possible. They’re working late, after all. 

When she’s made it through a few articles — none particularly relevant — she decides a thirty-second stretch break is in order. She arches out of the chair like a cat, revelling in the ability to relieve the stiffness in her neck and back. The low bun she’s kept her hair in all day is coming loose, and Tessa decides to throw propriety to the wayside and take out all the pins, letting her hair fall over her shoulders in loose waves.

It’s only when she’s safely deposited the bobby pins in her bag that she notices Scott has all but abandoned his current clip and is instead (not-so-stealthily) looking at her. She smiles despite herself, having unknowingly caught him in the act.

She clears her throat and smiles when he jerks upward, clearly flustered. “How’s it going?” she asks innocently, holding back a giggle.

“Uhh, great, kiddo. Just great.”

“Sure.” She raises her eyebrow and smiles, before turning back to her work. Caught him. And earned herself yet another nickname in the process.

They work in earnest for another hour, their piles dwindling as they read about various social events across Toronto that Didier has graced with his presence. One set of names strikes her in particular — _Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron._ They only popped up in Toronto society recently, Tessa pieces together, but they’re never far from Didier’s side.

One article has a small photo attached, part of a larger spread for a banquet honouring the National Ballet. There they are, Gabriella in between the two men, all dressed to the nines and smiling for the camera. 

The cutline doesn’t give her much information either, except that they’re French and socialites, and Tessa can’t help but wonder why they’ve shown up in Toronto out of nowhere. 

She leans forward in her chair and taps Scott’s arm. “Look at this,” she says, passing him the clip. He scans it and frowns, before producing a similar one from his pile.

“Notice anything strange?” he asks, pointing at the photo. 

“Yeah. They’re at the premier’s wife’s garden party.”

“I wonder how they managed to snag that invitation.” 

“Me too.” He studies the photo more closely, as if staring at it will suddenly make it move and reveal some hidden secret. Tessa stifles a yawn, and Scott looks up at her, his eyes soft. “It’s late, kiddo. Let’s get you home.”

She glances at the clock and realizes it’s past ten. Nodding, she moves to gather her things. She and Scott walk to the elevator side by side, and at one point, her shoulder brushes his, and she swears she feels a spark passing between them. She pulls back immediately and wonders if he felt it too.

He insists on driving her home once she tells him she was planning on taking the bus, so she finds herself in his pickup a few minutes later, driving through the darkened streets of Toronto. 

She fiddles with his stereo, perking up when “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates filters through the speakers. She knows all the lyrics, has their albums on vinyl in her apartment. Scott laughs at her off-key rendition of the song, and she grins when he joins in.

When they pull up to her apartment complex, he insists on walking her to the door, and they do so in amicable silence.

“Goodnight, T,” he says when she’s standing in the open doorframe. “See you tomorrow.”

She’s about to say something in return when he dips down and presses a kiss to her cheek, lingering for just a split-second before pulling back and running his hand through his hair. He’s blushing so hard she can see it in the darkness, with only the light from a sideboard lamp in her apartment illuminating the scene.

“I gotta—” he starts, flustered.

“Good night, Scott,” she whispers, a smile ghosting around her lips.

He nods and turns before disappearing out into the street.

Tessa closes her apartment door behind her.

That night, she dreams of garden parties and dinners with socialites — where her plus-one is none other than Scott Moir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments make my day. Feel free to yell at me there, or on Tumblr, @good-things-come-in-threes, or Twitter, @_bucketofrice.


	3. the first quote

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's been a while, and I apologize. Real life happened, and then this chapter just didn't want to be written, but we're here now.
> 
> Once again, thank you for the lovely response to this story so far, and I hope you like this chapter too :')

**_the first quote_ **

_(n.) records the opinions, emotions and unique expressions of the source; should draw the reader into the story and contextualize the most important information_

The next morning, Tessa heads straight for her desk and gets to work on a ream of papers, furiously attacking them with her red pencil. 

She’s determined to ignore the fact that Scott drove her home the night before, his eyes lighting up as she sung along to Hall & Oates in his truck, completely off-key. She’s determined to ignore the soft gaze he had as he walked her to her apartment, the way his hand had hovered over the small of her back, hesitant to touch. She’s determined to ignore the kiss he’d pressed to her cheek, how he’d gotten so incredibly flustered and shy at the gesture. 

Most of all, she’s determined to ignore that he filled her dreams last night, dressed up in a suit and tie — and suspenders, _which: Really Tessa? That one is new._ — looking far too handsome for his own good. _Yeah, definitely not appropriate thoughts to be having about a colleague._

So she throws herself into the one thing she _can_ control: her work. And there’s plenty to go around, she thinks, as she eyes the stack in her basket. She came in early, even though she’s absolutely not a morning person, trying to somehow erase the past twenty-four hours from existence. She’s doing pretty well, she thinks, when she’s knee-deep in a paragraph with excruciating comma placement, until Kaitlyn walks in with a much-too-cheery grin on her face.

It’s only 9 in the morning, damn it.

“You’re in before me?” Kaitlyn exclaims. “What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing, I just woke up earlier than normal and decided to get ahead.” She conveniently leaves out the reason she hadn’t been able to sleep — _Scott_ — and tries to remain as nonchalant as possible.

“I call bullshit,” Kaitlyn says, and yeah, being blasé was never Tessa’s strong suit. “You, my friend, are _not_ a morning person.”

Tessa feels herself flush at Kaitlyn’s stare.

“What’s this really about?” Tessa’s about to say _nothing_ again — hopefully in a more convincing manner — when Kaitlyn goes out on a limb and hits the bullseye on her first go. “Is it about a _boy_?”

Tessa’s gut reaction, which consists of blushing even harder and shaking her head vigorously, is doing nothing to help her in this situation.

“Is this about Scott?” Now, Tessa’s positive she’s beet red, and Kaitlyn is practically doing a victory dance right there, in the middle of the newsroom. “Oooh, what happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened, Kait.” Because nothing really did, well, except for that cheek kiss, but Tessa’s determined to ignore that, so by her own logic, they’re in the clear. And besides … “Should I ask you how your boy situation is going? When was the last time you talked to Andrew?”

Touché.

Andrew Poje works for the sports desk, and Tessa has caught him and Kaitlyn making heart eyes at one another far too many times to count. The problem is, neither of them will actually _act_ upon it, which, she has to admit to herself, could be a _slightly similar_ situation to the one she and Scott are currently finding themselves in. 

Except she and Scott are working together on a story, and crossing any sort of lines is a recipe for disaster. No, they have to focus. They’re _platonic_ colleagues working on an assignment together. One might even call them _business partners._

Kaitlyn lets out a huff, and Tessa steels herself for her friend’s comeback.

She doesn’t get to make it, though, because suddenly Chiddy is running toward them at full speed, clutching a paper, his eyes wide. He comes to a stop in front of Tessa, clearly out of breath.

“Got it!”

“Got what?” Kaitlyn asks, but Chiddy just shakes his head and focuses on Tessa. 

“Where is Scott?”

“I don’t know… his desk, probably?”

Chiddy sets off running again, and Tessa can’t do anything but follow. They make it to Scott’s desk and Chiddy doesn’t even give them a second to process before he launches into the story.

“It’s not manufacturing — it’s imports!”

Scott and Tessa look at each other, both equally confused. A shimmer of acknowledgement of last night passes between them, but they both ignore it in favour of getting Chiddy to explain what the hell he’s going on about. As it turns out, one of Chiddy’s sources passed along a lease agreement summary, and the lessee is none other than Didier.

The lease is for a warehouse in the city, in optimal distance from the harbour. There’s no description for what exactly Didier plans on storing in said warehouse, but whatever it is, he’s now got plenty of space for it.

“My guy said the agreement was fast-tracked through council,” Chiddy says once they’re done reading through the paper. “Which is odd, given the latest set of import restrictions.”

In an effort to promote Canadian manufacturing, laws were passed which tighten restrictions on foreign imports. In theory, those very laws should have made it impossible for Didier to get the lease on the warehouse approved as fast as he did.

And, the bigger point here, as Chiddy points out to them, is that they don’t have any idea what Didier is planning to _store_ in said warehouse.

“None of your sources have any ideas?” Scott asks, his eyes still fixed on the lease agreement.

“Nope.” Chiddy punctuates the sound with a _pop_ , shaking his head. “He has to have some kind of an in somewhere, otherwise this would never fly.”

“But where would he have the in?” Tessa asks. There are too many possibilities for who could’ve helped him get the lease, despite all the regulations.

“My bet is on a councillor,” Scott says, looking up from the paper. “If this guy, who hasn’t been in town for that long, can get himself around laws that are meant to protect Canadians, he’s got to have an in somewhere close to the source.”

“He did show up at the premier’s garden party,” Tessa adds. “He’s clearly got connections.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Chiddy says, and Tessa and Scott thank him before he returns to his own desk, back with the other finance reporters.

Suddenly, they’re alone at Scott’s desk and all the tension they’d done their best to ignore is back in full force. She looks down at the floor, because apparently, the ugly grey speckled carpet of the newsroom floor is _so_ interesting to her this morning, her hands worrying with the thin silver ring she wears on her left middle finger.

It’s a habit she’s had for years now, ever since she got the ring, and it’s comforting somehow, to know it’s always there.

“Tess?”

She glances up at Scott, but can’t bear to properly meet his gaze. Through her lashes, she sees that he looks about as uncomfortable as she feels right now.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says, running his hand through his hair. He’s clearly embarrassed, and she should focus on that, but she can’t stop staring at the way he runs his fingers through his hair, thinking absentmindedly that _it’s just the right length to grab on to._

She has to stop her train of thought, because his eyes have gone positively despondent and he looks a bit like a sad puppy who accidentally chewed his owner’s shoes. 

“Scott, it’s alright.” She wants to reach out and touch his arm reassuringly, but decides at the last minute that that may not be the best course of action. She lets her hand fall to her side instead. “No harm, no foul. Let’s just forget last night even happened, okay?”

He lets out a breath, the relief evident on his face. It shouldn’t bug her that he seems so content with pretending last night didn’t happen — especially because it’s all she’s been trying to do since she woke up in the morning — but the feeling won’t leave her chest.

(Little does she know, Scott is feeling the exact same way, wanting to get back to their usual relationship but also not wanting to discount the moment they’d shared. Because there had been _something_ there, something undeniable, like a spark passing between them.)

“Thanks, kiddo.”

“Of course.”

They don’t have enough information yet to devote their full attention to the Didier story, as much as they’d like to. Real work is calling.

For Tessa, it’s in the form of a grouchy Marina who passes by Scott’s desk with a cup of coffee and a disapproving look. Tessa follows her quickly, wanting to spare herself from her boss’s morning rant about the state of the average _Globe_ writer’s command of comma placement.

From what Tessa’s gleaned from Marina’s past few rants, the situation is quite dire.

She and Scott meet up again that evening to dig deeper into Didier’s ties, and slowly begin assembling a biography of the man. Their routine continues for a solid week: meet in the mornings and see if they can get any more information, split up to do their respective jobs, and then re-hash everything at the end of the day. 

By the end, they’re still missing one crucial part of the puzzle: what is Didier looking to import?

Tessa figures this piece of information will help them get a lead on what councillor or department Didier went to to fast-track his lease; Scott just wants to know what the hell he needs that much warehouse space for. In the end, none of that matters if they can’t get an answer to their original question.

That frustration is what they’re fighting on Friday night, sat at Tessa’s desk, utterly defeated. Tessa has resorted to laying her head on the tabletop, not caring who sees her like this. She’s frustrated, and grouchy and maybe she just wants to pout for a bit and sulk. _Sue her._

She can tell that Scott’s been annoyed too; he’s been fidgeting more than normal, and his eyebrows have raised to truly impressive levels more than ten times today. (Yes, she counted.)

So colour her surprised when Scott gets up from his chair, taps her on the shoulder and says “We’re getting out of here!” brightly, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

She’s about to protest, but Scott raises his arm as if to stop her.

“I’m taking you to get food,” he announces, sounding so sure about this decision that she doesn’t even have the energy to argue with him anymore. And besides, a bit of food doesn’t sound all that bad right about now.

They end up in a 24-hour diner a few blocks from the newsroom, and pretty soon, there are two sandwiches and an order of French fries between them.

“So,” Scott asks, after he takes a bite of a fry, “how’s the reporting life treating you, kiddo?”

Tessa snorts; she has half a mind to tell him to shove it, because he knows _exactly_ how it’s going, and it’s not going well. She settles on a better answer then, unsure of why, but Scott somehow makes her want to open up, and share parts of herself she doesn’t normally put in full view.

“I guess it’s sort of how I expected? And also not?”

She’s at a loss for words, really, because she finally gets to do the thing she dreamed about as a child, finally gets to chase a scoop and call potential sources and sit down for interviews and eventually write the article and get the byline — and yet, they’re seemingly at a standstill.

She wonders if she hyped the job up too much in her head, made it too glamorous and unattainable, if she’s just trying to play make-believe with a nonexistent dream.

When she tells all this to Scott, she sees his eyes soften, his lips quirking up into a tired smile. 

“My first assignment back in Ilderton was covering the 50th anniversary of a family-owned hardware store. The owner refused to talk to me about his own store, and I had to explain to him in five different ways that I wasn’t trying to copy his business model and open another store down the street.”

Tessa laughs at that, picturing Scott getting increasingly exasperated at the older man’s antics.

“My point is, we all start out somewhere. For you, it’s right here. You’re just getting started, T. Don’t put yourself under so much pressure, eh?”

“Yeah.” She smiles. “Thank you.”

They eat the last of their fries in companionable silence, and this time it’s Tessa who suggests they go back to her apartment to keep working. She surprises herself when she does it, but decides to ignore her gut telling her this is not about working more, it's about spending more time with him. Her apartment is closer than Scott’s, and she really doesn’t feel like going back to the newsroom again.

She lets them inside her third-floor walkup, smiling shyly as Scott surveys the small space. It’s not big, but it’s home, and Tessa has done her best to make sure it’s cozy and inviting.

“It’s very you,” Scott remarks, and she can’t help but grin.

Sitting on her sofa with Scott at the table, stacks of paper and two glasses of wine before them both, is surprisingly comfortable. She almost forgets they’re working right now, thinks that this could be any other night with Scott in her apartment, and decides to promptly banish that though to the back of her head. _Focus, Tessa,_ she tells herself, over and over. _Focus._

She’s so engrossed in the file that she barely registers that Scott gets up from his chair and begins to wander around her shoebox apartment, crossing the living area in a few short strides. He’s restless, she can tell, but she does her best to ignore him; she needs to get through three more pages.

He scans the books on her shelves, fingers brushing across the spines, before he pauses at the record player sitting on her sideboard. It’s still open from when she last used it, a forgotten record sitting inside, the needle pulled back.

He looks at it intently (though she told herself to focus, she’s been following his exploration of her space for a few minutes now, and it’s proving infinitely more interesting than the paper before her) and he reaches out as if he’s about to put the needle down. He stops himself, turning to her, a question in his gaze. 

She smiles and nods, turning back to the task at hand. She’s about to let whatever music she left on the record player last act as background noise to her work, but then she hears it, the unmistakeable opening notes and the sound of a lone trumpet filtering through the air.

Oh, _that’s_ what she’d left there.

She turns to Scott, whose lips are quirking up into a smile. His eyes are soft and she can’t help but smile shyly back. _Damn, the things this man does to her._

He holds out his hand to her, his eyes crinkling, and before she really knows what’s happening, she’s let him pull her to her feet. He slides an arm around her back, shifting them so she’s closer, into what she realizes is a real dance hold. (She really should ask herself how he knows how to do this, but their current closeness has made her brain go conveniently foggy.)

He starts swaying side to side, in tune with the music, and she rests her head on his chest, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “What are we doing, Scott?” she hears herself asking. 

In the background, Louis Armstrong croons about _la vie en rose_.

Don’t get her wrong, every cell in her body is screaming _more_ and _closer_ and _hell, yes_ at their current situation, but her head wins out in the end. She thinks Scott can sense this too, because he pulls her even closer, whispering in her ear. “Just let it come to you.” At that, all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight on end. 

So she does — lets all her worries fall to the wayside for a few precious moments, reducing her existence to the singularity of her and Scott, swaying in her apartment at close to midnight, dancing to what is arguably one of the best-known love songs on the planet.

At one point he starts singing along too, his voice low and tender and just a little bit scratchy, but still like honey to her ears. “Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be … _la vie en rose_ ,” Scott sings, right into the shell of her ear, and she feels herself shudder at the sensation.

As the last notes of the song begin to ring out, Scott pulls back, just a little. She feels herself missing the contact immediately, yearning for his touch. Instead of separating from her, though, he cups one of her cheeks with a hand, the calloused pad of his thumb gently stroking over it.

He pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She looks down at the ground, a flush creeping up her cheeks. Scott tips her chin up with his thumb, forcing their eyes to meet.

She thinks absentmindedly that she could get lost in them forever, deep brown with flecks of hazel, before his gaze flicks to her lips and back again and she has to gulp. 

_Oh._

He’s even closer now, if that’s possible, his lips a hair’s breadth from hers, his breath hot on her skin, and she has to close her eyes, it’s all too much.

When his lips press to hers, still pink from her lipstick, it feels impossibly soft, like caressing a petal. _La vie en rose_ indeed.


	4. attribution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *taps mic* Is this thing still on?
> 
> Uhh, this is probably where I insert a good reason for it literally being six months since I updated this last, but truth be told I have none. Life and plotholes got in the way.
> 
> To any of you coming back to this story (I hope there are some?), thank you for sticking with me. To those who never saw this before, *psst* I'd suggest you start at the beginning.
> 
> Thanks to [falsettodrop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop) for the encouragement and edit!

**_attribution_ **

_(n.) the ascribing of a quote or idea to a particular source, so as to indicate its origin_

Kissing Scott is everything she imagined and nothing like it at all. He’s gentle and passionate, careful and reckless, tender and consuming all at once. He’s cradling the back of her head with one hand, her waist with the other, and she feels herself going pliant in his arms.

She practically melts into the kiss, into the feeling of his lips on hers, and when he licks into her mouth she lets out a sound that’s halfway between a whimper and a sigh. Scott uses that as encouragement to haul her closer, and she fists her hand in his hair, tugging gently.

It’s only when his hand carefully dips below her shirt, just a fraction of a degree, and brushes along the soft skin of her back, that she freezes. As her brain works double-time to make up for the myriad of endorphins currently coursing through her system and form some kind of coherent thought, she realizes three things very quickly.

One: She has been kissing Scott Moir, who she has, since the day they collided in a hallway, found entirely too attractive for his own good. And it might just be better than she ever dreamed it would be. Which is a problem in its own right.

Two: Scott Moir is her work colleague. And thus, according to the rules Tessa set for herself the day she first stepped foot at the Globe, he is very much off limits. And the fact that she just kissed him? Well, that means she just blew every one of her own rules to smithereens.

Three: She doesn’t know how they’re going to go back to whatever friendship they’d built up previously, how they’re going to move past this. How could she ever forget this—the feeling of fitting so perfectly in the arms of another person? Truth be told, she doesn’t know if she wants to.

Still, she places her hands on his chest, pushing gently until he leans back and looks down at her, eyes wide. His hair is mussed, face flushed, and he looks so adorably bewildered that she could melt right there.

Except no, she can’t do that; she has to get a grip.

“We can’t, Scott,” she says, once she’s regained the power of speech. She doesn’t mean for it to come out quite as mournful as she does, but as she looks up into his eyes, she finds she does mean it that way.

She wishes she could keep kissing him, could back them up against a wall, could let him lavish attention on the crook between her neck and shoulder … but she can’t. They can’t.

He lets out a resigned sigh and his forehead touches hers. “I know.” He pulls back just enough to drop a kiss on the crown of her head, before squeezing her shoulder and taking two steps backward, toward the couch.

The silence is heavy between them, thick and loaded, and she doesn’t know whether to look at Scott or the floor. When she does hazard a glance, she sees him awkwardly scratching the back of his head, shifting from one foot to another. He looks like he’s weighing out his words, mouth opening slightly as he tests out how they would feel on the tip of his tongue.

She has to take him out of his misery.

She says: “Scott, I’m sor—”

just as he says: “Tess, I’m sor—”

and she has to let out a laugh, an awkward, breathy thing.

“I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry,” he says, all in a rush, the words tumbling out like loose change that doesn’t quite make it into the payphone.

“No, no, don’t apologize,” she says quickly, stepping toward him again. “I did it too.” She very nearly places a hand on his chest, but pulls back at the last second, as if the mere thought of touching him could burn her. Instead, she fiddles with the ring on her finger and forces her gaze down at the floor.

“I should go,” he says eventually.

“Yeah.”

“Tess, I—” The words seem to die in the back of his throat, and she looks up when he doesn’t seem to move to continue. Her eyes are expectant, and he averts his gaze. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

He moves to grab his coat, lingering by her front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he says, and it comes out as a question, tentative almost.

“Yeah,” she says, quick to reassure him. “Goodnight Scott.”

“Night, Tess.”

With a click, he shuts the door and she screws her eyes shut. _Fuck._

If she thought the morning after Scott kissed her on the cheek was awkward, the morning after she made out with Scott in her apartment may well be the most mortifying day of her entire life.

They hadn’t talked anything out that night, not really, beyond hurried apologies and buckets of tension and careful avoidance of the fact that they’d ended up pressed close together for the second time in just as many days—and that neither of them had minded, not at all.

Because that’s the problem here, isn’t it, she thinks idly as she’s sitting at her desk, papers in front of her that she’s currently trying her hardest not to ignore: she had _liked_ it, so fucking much. And truth be told, if the pesky fact that _they work together_ weren’t in the way, she’d have done much more than kiss him that night.

But they _do_ work together, and as much as that fact is currently terribly inconvenient, she knows it’s for the best that they stopped whatever it is they were doing last night. Even if it means she’ll be embarrassed beyond belief once she has to see Scott again today.

She’s safe for the moment, hiding out at her desk, and she hopes that Kaitlyn won’t come interrogate her today. She doesn’t know if or how she’d be able to divert the conversation this time, because cheek kisses can be talked away as innocent little things, but kisses that send shivers up her spine, that make her weak in the knees, make her ache in places that she blushes just thinking about … well, those are a whole other situation entirely.

Her train of thought is thankfully interrupted by Marina, who tells her she’s wanted in Igor’s office, stat—with Scott. _Great._

Scott looks as confused as she feels when they enter the office and Igor motions for them to close the door. The ever-present cloud of smoke floats around his head, and he’s leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on the surface of his desk. He takes a drag of his cigarette, coughing slightly before he speaks. His raspy voice makes Tessa consider (for the briefest of moments) dropping a journal article on the link between smoking and lung cancer in his mail slot, but she abandons the idea when he clears his throat roughly.

“I need updates,” he says, looking expectantly at the two of them.

Scott glances over at Tessa, and then at Igor and back again.

They haven’t spoken since the night before, and about work since hours before that (it was forgotten somewhere between Louis Armstrong’s crooning and Scott’s lips against hers), and it takes them a second to get their bearings. Scott summarizes their current findings for Igor, and the older man looks at them with a grimace.

Tessa stands next to Scott, hands clasped behind her back, finding that she has nothing else to add.

“Good,” Igor says finally, giving Scott an approving look and sparing none for Tessa. “You said he has a warehouse?”

Tessa opens her mouth to answer but Scott gets there first.

“Yes, sir. He’s purchased quite a bit of space, but we don’t know what he’s storing there.”

“You’ve called?” Igor asks.

“The phone is disconnected,” Tessa says, feeling the need to contribute even something as minute as that to the conversation.

Igor ignores her and keeps talking to Scott. “You should go, see if there are workers there.”

“Yes sir, I was planning on heading over there this afternoon. Chiddy said this morning that his guy told him there are usually dock workers by the warehouses to keep an eye out; I was going to drive over.”

 _What?_ They hadn’t discussed anything like that, and Tessa feels momentarily blindsided. Scott had talked to Chiddy without her, apparently, and then come up with a plan which he had neglected to tell her about. So much for _this is your story Tess, you should write it_.

“Good, you are dismissed,” Igor says with a flick of his hand, and Scott closes his notebook and heads for the door. She has no choice but to follow.

Once they’re back in the corridor, Tessa grabs Scott’s shirtsleeve and drags him down the hall, in a move eerily reminiscent to their first meeting with Igor, all that time ago.

“What do you mean you’re going to the warehouse this afternoon?” she spits out when she shoves him against the wall, and her stupid brain feels the need to tell her that _ha, she did get to back Scott Moir up against a wall after all_. So much for ignoring any infatuation she feels toward him then.

Still, the anger is outweighing her desire to kiss him, and that’s currently working to her advantage.

“Tess—” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“Don’t ‘Tess’ me. You steamrolled all over me in that meeting, and didn’t let me contribute at all. If you were planning on no longer taking the whole co-bylining thing seriously, you could have at least told me _before_ we went in there!”

Scott looks like he’s about to open his mouth and she silences him with a strategically placed finger.

“And going to Chiddy without me is a new low, by the way. We’re supposed to be on the same page here, but apparently that all went out the window after you kissed me. So now you decide you’re just going to go off looking for things on your own? Well fine then, if that’s what you want, go on ahead.”

She huffs and turns on her heel, making double time as she heads down the corridor. She knows this is juvenile, that she should give him time to explain himself and reply but apparently her nerves are still on high alert from last night, so she just keeps walking, away, trying to get as far from him as she can.

Of course he runs after her.

Of course he catches up.

“Tess, hang on,” she hears from behind her as she’s about to round a corner. She’s this close to ignoring him, this close to just storming off and leaving him in the wake. It’s his hand on her shoulder blade that stops her, the gentlest of touches. She turns and faces him with what she hopes is her most menacing stare.

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing out of his mouth and he looks and sounds so contrite that she’s inclined to believe him. “I didn’t mean to take over in there like that. I think my brain was still dealing with yesterday and I tried to make up for it in there, but that’s not an excuse.”

“It’s okay.” She gets it; she was just as rattled as he was by the whole thing but they process differently. Scott externalizes and she internalizes, and at some point it’s got to blow up in their faces. But still: “What’s not okay is you suddenly making plans to chase leads without me.”

She feels as though she’s on more solid ground now, with this particular argument, because Scott does not get to make unilateral decisions for the both of them. Not on her watch. They’re supposed to be working _together_ here, sharing information, because _two heads are better than one_ and all that.

“I was going to tell you this morning,” Scott says.

“Uh huh,” she replies, not caring at all about the obvious sarcasm in her tone. “Of course you were. Were you also going to let me come with you?”

“Tess, it could be dangerous…”

“Are you serious? You think driving to a probably empty warehouse in broad daylight is too dangerous?” She cannot believe him. “Is it because I’m a girl?”

“Hey, woah, slow down. I never said that.” He holds up his hands. “You have no idea what’s going on there, who’s in that warehouse.”

“You don’t either,” she says, seething. “Going alone is the worst idea you’ve had in a long time, Scott, and you’ve had some bad ideas.”

She’s standing across from him with her hands on her hips, trying to make herself look as strong and capable as possible. Inside, though, she just feels like a petulant little girl. But she knows she has a point here, that no matter how much Scott goes on about this being unsafe and that he’s just looking out for her, the reality of the matter is that he is a man and she is a woman, and he doesn’t think she’s capable of this.

“Tess, I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he starts again. “You’re taking this too lightly. This is serious.”

“I know just how serious this is,” she fires back, “considering I’m the one who got the call in the first place.”

“Have you ever gone out for something like this? Do you know what to do if anything happens?”

“Scott, what do you think this is, some bad crime show on television? We’re going to a warehouse, not to a shootout.”

“ _We’re_ going, huh?” he asks. “When did that get decided?”

“Just now.” She’s more determined than ever. “I’m not letting you go alone. There’s no good reason for it. And we’re _partners_ in this, remember? Or did you conveniently forget that too?”

Scott scrubs his hand over his face and lets out a sigh.

“Fine. Meet me by the cars at three.”

“Fine.”

She turns around on her heel and walks away, a mixture of satisfaction, trepidation and lingering anger simmering in her stomach.

They’re both silent when they end up in Scott’s truck a few hours later, buckling in and not exchanging a single word. Scott turns on the radio, which she appreciates, because the silence is deafening already. They haven’t really talked about last night, instead choosing to fight about their jobs, and that means that no topic of conversation is safe right now.

Truth be told, she doesn’t really _want_ to talk to him at all; she’s content to let the sound of the music drown out the awkwardness between them.

She’d thought better of him, if she was being honest. She didn’t expect him to pull the same card so many male journalists did—claiming that certain work wasn’t suitable for women because they were of a fairer countenance, or whatever other bullshit excuse they came up with—but here he was, trying to dissuade her from pursuing a lead because she’s a woman.

But apparently, she’d set her expectations too high and now she has to deal with the sting of disappointment—and it probably serves her right.

The drive to the warehouse is short enough, and she lets out a sigh as she unbuckles her seatbelt and follows Scott outside, stopping to take in the rows of warehouses, the containers stacked upon one another, the workers moving about.

Scott points to his left.

“Down this way, then we take a right.” It’s the first thing either of them have said in hours.

She nods and follows him down the way, scanning her surroundings for any sign of Didier or his firm. After a few minutes, they reach the warehouse. It’s massive, just as Chiddy said it would be, no windows on the outside, just a small sign on the grey walls. _ISU Holdings, Inc._

“Well, we’re in the right place,” she muses. She’s surprised Didier hasn’t concealed his warehouse better, but she supposes the man has gotten away with enough in his lifetime to make him either careless or incredibly full of himself. She doesn’t know if she hopes it’s the former or the latter.

Scott lets out a huff and shakes his head. “No shit.”

“Hey,” she says, “you don’t get to be mad right now. I think that privilege goes to me.”

“Fine, Tess,” he huffs, and heads further along the path. “I’m gonna look for the entrance. You wait here.”

“I’m coming with you.” She sets off after him, her hands balled into fists. He really thinks he can make her wait, huh? Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.

“Suit yourself.”

They walk around the perimeter of the building together, but there seem to be no workers around, and when they get to the door—a massive thing that a whole semi-truck could fit into—Scott knocks and then takes a step back.

A beat passes, and nothing. No shuffling of feet, no movement whatsoever.

Scott turns toward her, shrugging. “Well that’s that then.”

“Hang on.” Tessa steps toward the warehouse door, and gingerly presses down on the handle. It moves with a creak, and the massive door opens just a sliver. “Scott,” she whisper-shouts, “Get over here.”

He does as told, and when he sees what she’s done, his eyes nearly pop out of his head, they’re as wide as saucers. “Tess, what the hell?”

“It’s not my fault they didn’t lock up the place,” she says, easy as you please, and shrugs her shoulders. “For all we know, the door wasn’t closed properly and there was a gust of wind.”

“Jesus, that’s breaking and entering, T—”

“It’s not _breaking_ if it’s unlocked.”

She sticks her head inside the door and doesn’t flinch as Scott pulls her back. She expected this from him, he’s so straitlaced and proper in situations like these.

“I’m just peeking, relax.”

“Nothing about this is particularly relaxing, Tess.”

“Oh, hush.” She turns away from him, shakes her head, and peers further into the door. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she lets out a gasp. “Holy shit.”

“T, what is it?” Scott asks from behind her.

“You’ve gotta see for yourself,” she says, motioning for him to join her.

He does, taking the two steps forward and then his head is right next to hers. She can feel his breath on her ear, can hear when he sucks it in sharply as he sees what’s in front of him.

Steel.

Thousands and thousands of bars of illegally imported steel.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me here, in comments, or on [Tumblr](http://good-things-come-in-threes.tumblr.com/%22) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_bucketofrice).


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